“Direct your children onto the right
path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.”
Prv. 22:6
Prv. 22:6
Effectively raising a child to
adulthood is no easy task. Moment to moment purposeful intention and wisdom
that comes from utter dependence on God is required to navigate ones own
personal life, let alone raise another human being to maturity.
Remember the odd feeling when taking
your baby home from the hospital the first time? Remember how inadequate you
felt? Remember thinking, “They’re just going to let me walk out of here with
this baby? More training was required to earn my drivers license! …How do I
change a diaper much less raise a child?!”
“To every thing there
is a season, and a time to every
purpose under the heaven.” (Eccl. 3:1), including raising
children to adulthood. For it’s just when we as
parents personally mature in the area of “raising” a child, it’s time to “let
go” of our young adult.
It
was difficult to watch our young independent 3 yr old fall and scuff his knee.
It’s equally as hard to watch our now 20 something yr old fall and get
scrapped. Internally, our response remains fairly unchanged, but eternally, we
cant’ simply run over, pick him up, dust him off, and doctor his boo boos. He’s
now an adult. He has to learn to pick himself up, dust himself off, learn from
his fall, and mature. (Our parental
role has evolved, but has not been eliminated. We now offer advice only when
asked…yet we can still pray like crazy!)
Thank goodness life is a learning
process, sandwiched in grace. We’ve told our 3 adult kids something like this:
“We did the best with what we had, but inevitably we’ve said/done things to
cause you pain. We are so very sorry. Will you please forgive us?
This said, you ________, now have the
choice to never live under pains of your childhood. With forgiveness and
fortitude, you now have the opportunity to ‘better upon’ things said/done to
you. Walk tightly with Jesus and grow up in your salvation!”
Father
God tells us similar things as we grow in Him.
As
newborn babies, He nurtured us and protected us, but as we grew, He
intentionally allowed us to fall and scrape our knees so that we could learn
and mature.
Never causing us pain because of
erroneous action, our perfect Lord tells us:
“Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow
up in your salvation.” 1 Pet.2:2
“Solid food is for the mature,
who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” Heb. 5:14
“Let perseverance finish its
work so that you maybe mature and complete, not lacking anything.” Jas 1:4
While
there’s no human manual directing our moment-to-moment actions, we do have the Holy
Spirit and God’s Word. Through constant prayer whilst immersing ourselves in God’s
breathed pages, we find direction to guide our steps, wisdom for the wise and
knowledge for the discerning (Dan. 2:20-23). Amen.
Much
love this week as we live our utmost for His highest. ~Shaun and Betsy
